CHAPTER IV
HIS LITTLE SON
Lad's mate Lady was the only one of the Little People about The Placewho refused to look on Lad with due reverence. In her frolic-moods sheteased him unmercifully; in a prettily imperious way she bossed andbullied him--for all of which Lad adored her. He had other reasons,too, for loving Lady--not only because she was dainty and beautiful,and was caressingly fond of him, but because he had won her in fairmortal combat with the younger and showier Knave.
For a time after Knave's routing, Lad was blissfully happy in Lady'sundivided comradeship. Together they ranged the forests beyond ThePlace in search of rabbits. Together they sprawled shoulder toshoulder on the disreputable old fur rug in front of the living-roomfire. Together they did joyous homage to their gods, the Mistress andthe Master.
Then in the late summer a new rival appeared--to be accurate, threerivals. And they took up all of Lady's time and thought and love. Poorold Lad was made to feel terribly out in the cold. The trio of rivalsthat had so suddenly claimed Lady's care were fuzzy and roly-poly, andabout the size of month-old kittens. In brief, they were threethoroughbred collie puppies.
Two of them were tawny brown, with white forepaws and chests. Thethird was not like Lad in color, but like the mother--at least, all ofhim not white was of the indeterminate yellowish mouse-gray which, atthree months or earlier, turns to pale gold.
When they were barely a fortnight old--almost as soon as their bigmournful eyes opened--the two brown puppies died. There seemed noparticular reason for their death, except the fact that a collie isalways the easiest or else the most impossible breed of dog to raise.
The fuzzy grayish baby alone was left--the puppy which was soon toturn to white and gold. The Mistress named him "Wolf."
Upon Baby Wolf the mother-dog lavished a ridiculous lot of attention--somuch that Lad was miserably lonely. The great collie would trywith pathetic eagerness, a dozen times a day, to lure his mateinto a woodland ramble or into a romp on the lawn, but Lady methis wistful advances with absorbed indifference or with a snarl.Indeed when Lad ventured overnear the fuzzy baby, he was warnedoff by a querulous growl from the mother or by a slash of her shinywhite teeth.
Lad could not at all understand it. He felt no particular interest--onlya mild and disapproving curiosity--in the shapeless little whimperingball of fur that nestled so helplessly against his beloved mate'sside. He could not understand the mother-love that kept Lady withWolf all day and all night. It was an impulse that meant nothingto Lad.
After a week or two of fruitless effort to win back Lady's interest,Lad coldly and wretchedly gave up the attempt. He took long solitarywalks by himself in the forest, retired for hours at a time to sadbrooding in his favorite "cave" under the living-room piano, and triedto console himself by spending all the rest of his day in the companyof the Mistress and the Master. And he came thoroughly to disapproveof Wolf. Recognizing the baby intruder as the cause of Lady'sestrangement from himself, he held aloof from the puppy.
The latter was beginning to emerge from his newborn shapelessness. Hiscoat's texture was changing from fuzz to silk. Its color was turningfrom gray into yellow. His blunt little nose was lengthening andgrowing thin and pointed. His butter-ball body was elongating, and hishuge feet and legs were beginning to shape up. He looked more like adog now, and less like an animated muff. Also within Wolf's youthfulheart awoke the devil of mischief, the keen urge of play. He foundLady a pleasant-enough playfellow up to a certain point. But apainfully sharp pinch from her teeth or a reproving and breath-takingslap from one of her forepaws was likely to break up every game thatshe thought had gone far enough; when Wolf's clownish roughness atlength got on her hair-trigger nerves.
So, in search of an additional playmate, the frolicsome puppy turnedto Lad, only to find that Lad would not play with him at all. Ladmade it very, very clear to everyone--except to the fool puppyhimself--that he had no desire to romp or to associate in any way withthis creature which had ousted him from Lady's heart! Being cursedwith a soul too big and gentle to let him harm anything so helpless asWolf, he did not snap or growl, as did Lady, when the puppy teased. Hemerely walked away in hurt dignity.
Wolf had a positive genius for tormenting Lad. The huge collie, forinstance, would be snoozing away a hot hour on the veranda or underthe wistaria vines. Down upon him, from nowhere in particular, wouldpounce Wolf.
The puppy would seize his sleeping father by the ear, and drive hissharp little milk-teeth fiercely into the flesh. Then he would bracehimself and pull backward, possibly with the idea of dragging Ladalong the ground.
Lad would wake in pain, would rise in dignified unhappiness to hisfeet and start to walk off--the puppy still hanging to his ear. AsWolf was a collie and not a bulldog, he would lose his grip as his fatlittle body left the ground. Then, at a clumsy gallop, he would pursueLad, throwing himself against his father's forelegs and nipping theslender ankles. All this was torture to Lad, and dire mortificationtoo--especially if humans chanced to witness the scene. Yet never didhe retaliate; he simply got out of the way.
Lad, nowadays, used to leave half his dinner uneaten, and he took tomoping in a way that is not good for dog or man. For the moping had init no ill-temper--nothing but heartache at his mate's desertion, and aweary distaste for the puppy's annoying antics. It was bad enough forWolf to have supplanted him in Lady's affection, without also makinghis life a burden and humiliating him in the eyes of his gods.
Therefore Lad moped. Lady remained nervously fussy over her onechild. And Wolf continued to be a lovable, but unmitigated, pest. TheMistress and the Master tried in every way to make up to Lad for thepositive and negative afflictions he was enduring, but the sorrowingdog's unhappiness grew with the days.
Then one November morning Lady met Wolf's capering playfulness with ayell of rage so savage as to send the puppy scampering away in mortalterror, and to bring the Master out from his study on a run. For nonormal dog gives that hideous yell except in racking pain or inillness; and mere pain could not wring such a sound from a thoroughbred.
The Master called Lady over to him. Sullenly she obeyed, slinking upto him in surly unwillingness. Her nose was hot and dry; her softbrown eyes were glazed, their whites a dull red. Her dense coat wastumbled.
After a quick examination, the Master shut her into a kennel-room andtelephoned for a veterinary.
"She is sickening for the worst form of distemper," reported the vet'an hour later, "perhaps for something worse. Dogs seldom get distemperafter they're a year old, but when they do it's dangerous. Better letme take her over to my hospital and isolate her there. Distemper runsthrough a kennel faster than cholera through a plague-district. I maybe able to cure her in a month or two--or I may not. Anyhow, there'sno use in risking your other dogs' lives by leaving her here."
So it was that Lad saw his dear mate borne away from him in thetonneau of a strange man's car.
Lady hated to go. She whimpered and hung back as the vet' lifted heraboard. At sound of her whimper Lad started forward, head low, lipswrithing back from his clenched teeth, his shaggy throat vibrant withgrowls. At a sharp word of command from the Master, he checked hisonset and stood uncertain. He looked at his departing mate, his darkeyes abrim with sorrow, then glanced at the Master in an agony ofappeal.
"It's all right, Laddie," the Master tried to console him, strokingthe dog's magnificent head as he spoke. "It's all right. It's the onlychance of saving her."
Lad did not grasp the words, but their tone was reassuring. It toldhim, at least, that this kidnaping was legal and must not beprevented. Sorrowfully he watched the chugging car out of sight, upthe drive. Then with a sigh he walked heavily back to his "cave"beneath the piano.
Lad, alone of The Place's dogs, was allowed to sleep in the house atnight, and even had free access to that dog-forbidden spot, thedining-room. Next morning, as soon as the doors were opened, he dashedout in search of Lady. With some faint hope that she might have beenbrought back in the night, h
e ransacked every corner of The Place forher.
He did not find Lady. But Wolf very promptly found Lad. Wolf waslonely, too--terribly lonely. He had just spent the first solitarynight of his three-month life. He missed the furry warm body intowhose shelter he had always cuddled for sleep. He missed hisplaymate--the pretty mother who had been his fond companion.
There are few things so mournful as the eyes of even the happiestcollie pup; this morning, loneliness had intensified the melancholyexpression in Wolf's eyes. But at sight of Lad, the puppy gamboledforward with a falsetto bark of joy. The world was not quite empty,after all. Though his mother had cruelly absented herself, here was aplayfellow that was better than nothing. And up to Lad frisked theoptimistic little chap.
Lad saw him coming. The older dog halted and instinctively turnedaside to avoid the lively little nuisance. Then, halfway around, hestopped and turned back to face the puppy.
Lady was gone--gone, perhaps, forever. And all that was left to remindLad of her was this bumptious and sharp-toothed little son of hers.Lady had loved the youngster--Lady, whom Lad so loved. Wolf alone wasleft; and Wolf was in some mysterious way a part of Lady.
So, instead of making his escape as the pest cantered toward him, Ladstood where he was. Wolf bounded upward and as usual nipped merrilyat one of Lad's ears. Lad did not shake off his tormentor and stalkaway. In spite of the pain to the sensitive flesh, he remainedquiet, looking down at the joyful puppy with a sort of sorrowingfriendliness. He seemed to realize that Wolf, too, was lonely and thatthe little dog was helpless.
Tired of biting an unprotesting ear, Wolf dived for Lad's whiteforelegs, gnawing happily at them with a playfully unconsciousthrowback to his wolf ancestors who sought thus to disable an enemy bybreaking the foreleg bone. For all seemingly aimless puppy-play hadits origin in some ancestral custom.
Lad bore this new bother unflinchingly. Presently Wolf left off thesport. Lad crossed to the veranda and lay down. The puppy trotted overto him and stood for a moment with ears cocked and head on one side asif planning a new attack on his supine victim; then with a littlesatisfied whimper, he curled up close against his father's shaggy sideand went to sleep.
Lad gazed down at the slumberer in some perplexity. He seemed eveninclined to resent the familiarity of being used for a pillow. Then,noting that the fur on the top of the puppy's sleepy head was rumpled,Lad bent over and began softly to lick back the tousled hair intoshape with his curving tongue--his raspberry-pink tongue with thesingle queer blue-black blot midway on its surface. The puppy mumbleddrowsily in his sleep and nestled more snugly to his new protector.
And thus Lad assumed formal guardianship of his obstreperous littleson. It was a guardianship more staunch by far than Lady's hadbeen of late. For animal mothers early wear out their zealouslyself-sacrificing love for their young. By the time the latter are ableto shift for themselves, the maternal care ceases. And, later on, theonce-inseparable relationship drops completely out of mind.
Paternity, among dogs, is, from the very first, no tie at all. Lad,probably, had no idea of his relationship to his new ward. Hisadoption of Wolf was due solely to his own love for Lady and to thebig heart and soul that stirred him into pity for anything helpless.
Lad took his new duties very seriously indeed. He not only acceptedthe annoyance of Wolf's undivided teasing, but he assumed charge ofthe puppy's education as well--this to the amusement of everyone onThe Place. But everyone's amusement was kept from Lad. The sensitivedog would rather have been whipped than laughed at. So both theMistress and Master watched the educational process with outwardlystraight faces.
A puppy needs an unbelievable amount of educating. It is a task towear threadbare the teacher's patience and to do all kinds of thingsto the temper. Small wonder that many humans lose patience and temperduring the process and idiotically resort to the whip, to the boot-toeand to bellowing--in which case the puppy is never decently educated,but emerges from the process with a cowed and broken spirit or with anincurable streak of meanness that renders him worthless.
Time, patience, firmness, wisdom, temper-control, gentleness--these bethe six absolute essentials for training a puppy. Happy the human whois blessed with any three of these qualities. Lad, being only a dog,was abundantly possessed of all six. And he had need of them.
To begin with, Wolf had a joyous yearning to tear up or bury everyportable thing that could be buried or torn. He had a craze fordestruction. A dropped lace handkerchief, a cushion left on thegrass, a book or a hat lying on a veranda-chair--these and a thousandother things he looked on as treasure-trove, to be destroyed asquickly and as delightedly as possible.
He also enjoyed taking a flying leap onto the face or body of anyhammock-sleeper. He would howl long and lamentably, nearly everynight, at the moon. If the night were moonless, he howled on generalprinciples. He thrilled with bliss at a chance to harry and terrifythe chickens or peacocks or pigeons or any others of The Place'sLittle People that were safe prey for him. He tried this form ofbullying once--only once--on the Mistress' temperamental gray cat,Peter Grimm. For the rest of the day Wolf nursed a scratched nose anda torn ear--which, for nearly a week, taught him to give all cats awide berth; or, at most, to bark harrowingly at them from a safedistance.
Again, Wolf had an insatiable craving to find out for himself whetheror not everything on earth was good to eat. Kipling writes of puppies'experiments in trying to eat soap and blacking. Wolf added to thislimited fare a hundred articles, from clothespins to cigars. Theclimax came when he found on the veranda-table a two-pound box ofchocolates, from which the wrapping-paper and gilt cord had not yetbeen removed. Wolf ate not only all the candy, but the entire box andthe paper and the string--after which he was tumultuously and horriblyill.
The foregoing were but a small percentage of his gay sins. And onrespectable, middle-aged Lad fell the burden of making him into adecent canine citizen. Lad himself had been one of those rare puppiesto whom the Law is taught with bewildering ease. A single command orprohibition had ever been enough to fix a rule in his almost uncannilyhuman brain. Perhaps if the two little brown pups had lived, one orboth of them might have taken after their sire in character. But Wolfwas the true son of temperamental, wilful Lady, and Lad had his jobcut out for him in educating the puppy.
It was a slow, tedious process. Lad went at it, as he went ateverything--with a gallant dash, behind which was an endless supply ofresource and endurance. Once, for instance, Wolf leaped barkingly upona filmy square of handkerchief that had just fallen from the Mistress'belt. Before the destructive little teeth could rip the fine cambricinto rags, the puppy found himself, to his amazement, lifted gentlyfrom earth by the scruff of his neck and held thus, in midair, untilhe dropped the handkerchief.
Lad then deposited him on the grass--whereupon Wolf pounced once moreupon the handkerchief, only to be lifted a second time, painlessly butterrifyingly, above earth. After this was repeated five times, a gleamof sense entered the puppy's fluff-brain, and he trotted sulkily away,leaving the handkerchief untouched.
Again, when he made a wild rush at the friendly covey of peacockchicks, he found he had hurled himself against an object as immobileas a stone wall. Lad had darted in between the pup and the chicks,opposing his own big body to the charge. Wolf was bowled clean overby the force of the impact, and lay for a minute on his back, thebreath knocked clean out of his bruised body.
It was a longer but easier task to teach him at whom to bark and atwhom not to bark. By a sharp growl or a menacing curl of the lips, Ladsilenced the youngster's clamorous salvo when a guest or tradesmanentered The Place, whether on foot or in a car. By his own thunderouslymenacing bark he incited Wolf to a like outburst when some peddleror tramp sought to slouch down the drive toward the house.
The full tale of Wolf's education would require many profitless pagesin the telling. At times the Mistress and the Master, watching fromthe sidelines, would wonder at Lad's persistency and would despair ofhis success. Yet bit by bit--and in
a surprisingly short time for sovast an undertaking--Wolf's character was rounded into form. True, hehad the ever-goading spirits of a true puppy. And these spiritssometimes led him to smash even such sections of the law as he fullyunderstood. But he was a thoroughbred, and the son of cleverparents. So he learned, on the whole, with gratifying speed--far morequickly than he could have been taught by the wisest human.
Nor was his education a matter of constant drudgery. Lad varied it bytaking the puppy for long runs in the December woods and relaxed tothe extent of romping laboriously with him at times.
Wolf grew to love his sire as he had never loved Lady. For thediscipline and the firm kindliness of Lad were having their effect onhis heart as well as on his manners. They struck a far deeper notewithin him than ever had Lady's alternating affection and crossness.
In truth, Wolf seemed to have forgotten Lady. But Lad had not. Everymorning, the moment he was released from the house, Lad would trotover to Lady's empty kennel to see if by any chance she had come backto him during the night. There was eager hope in his big dark eyes ashe hurried over to the vacant kennel. There was dejection in everyline of his body as he turned away from his hopeless quest.
Late gray autumn had emerged overnight into white early winter. Theground of The Place lay blanketed in snow. The lake at the foot of thelawn was frozen solid from shore to shore. The trees crouched awayfrom the whirling north wind as if in shame at their own blacknakedness. Nature, like the birds, had flown south, leaving thenorthern world as dead and as empty and as cheerless as a desertedbird's-nest.
The puppy reveled in the snow. He would roll in it and bite it,barking all the while in an ecstasy of excitement. His gold-and-whitecoat was thicker and shaggier now, to ward off the stinging cold. Andthe snow and the roaring winds were his playfellows rather than hisfoes.
Most of all, the hard-frozen lake fascinated him. Earlier, when Ladhad taught him to swim, Wolf had at first shrunk back from the chillyblack water. Now, to his astonishment, he could run on that water aseasily--if somewhat sprawlingly--as on land. It was a miracle he nevertired of testing. He spent half his time on the ice, despite anoccasional hard tumble or involuntary slide.
Once and once only--in all her six-week absence and in his ownsix-week loneliness--had Lad discovered anything to remind him of hislost mate; and that discovery caused him for the first time in hisblameless life to break the most sacred of The Place's simpleLaws--the inviolable Guest-Law.
It was on a day in late November. A runabout came down the drive tothe front door of the house. In it rode the vet' who had taken Ladyaway. He had stopped for a moment on his way to Paterson, to report asto Lady's progress at his dog-hospital.
Lad was in the living-room at the time. As a maid answered the summonsat the door, he walked hospitably forward to greet the unknown guest.The vet' stepped into the room by one door as the Master entered it bythe other--which was lucky for the vet'.
Lad took one look at the man who had stolen Lady. Then, without asound or other sign of warning, he launched his mighty bulk straightat the vet's throat.
Accustomed though he was to the ways of dogs, the vet' had barely timeto brace himself and to throw one arm in front of his throat. And thenLad's eighty pounds smote him on the chest, and Lad's powerful jawsclosed viselike on the forearm that guarded the man's throat. Deepinto the thick ulster the white teeth clove their way--throughulster-sleeve and undercoat sleeve and the sleeves of a linen shirtand of flannels--clear through to the flesh of the forearm.
"_Lad!_" shouted the Master, springing forward.
In obedience to the sharp command, Lad loosed his grip and dropped tothe floor--where he stood quivering with leashed fury.
Through the rage-mists that swirled over his brain, he knew he hadbroken the Law. He had never merited punishment. He did not fear it.But the Master's tone of fierce disapproval cut the sensitive dog soulmore painfully than any scourge could have cut his body.
"Lad!" cried the Master again, in rebuking amazement.
The dog turned, walked slowly over to the Master and lay down at hisfeet. The Master, without another word, opened the front door andpointed outward. Lad rose and slunk out. He had been ordered from thehouse, and in a stranger's presence!
"He thinks I'm responsible for his losing Lady," said the vet',looking ruefully at his torn sleeve. "That's why he went for me. Idon't blame the dog. Don't lick him."
"I'm not going to lick him," growled the Master. "I'd as soon thrasha woman. Besides, I've just punished him worse than if I'd taken anax-handle to him. Send me a bill for your coat."
In late December came a thaw--a freak thaw that changed the whiteground to brown mud and rotted the smooth surface of the lake-ice togray slush. All day and all night the trees and the eaves sent forth adreary _drip-drip-drip_. It was the traditional January Thaw--setforward a month.
On the third and last morning of the thaw Wolf galloped down to thelake as usual. Lad jogged along at his side. As they reached themargin, Lad sniffed and drew back. His weird sixth sense somehow toldhim--as it tells an elephant--that there was danger ahead.
Wolf, however, was at the stage of extreme youth when neither dogs norhumans are bothered by premonitions. Ahead of him stretched the hugesheet of ice whereon he loved to gambol. Straightway he frisked outupon it.
A rough growl of warning from Lad made him look back, but the lure ofthe ice was stronger than the call of duty.
The current, at this point of the lake, twisted sharply landward in ahalf-circle. Thus, for a few yards out, the rotting ice was stillthick, but where the current ran, it was thin, and as soggy as wetblotting-paper--as Wolf speedily discovered.
He bounded on the thinner ice driving his hind claws into the slushysurface for his second leap. He was dismayed to find that the icecollapsed under the pounding feet. There was a dull, sloppy sound. Aten-foot ice-cake broke off from the main sheet; breaking at once intoa dozen smaller cakes; and Wolf disappeared, tail first, into theswift-running water beneath.
To the surface he came, at the outer edge of the hole. He was mad,clear through, at the prank his beloved lake had played on him. Hestruck out for shore. On the landward side of the opening his forefeetclawed helplessly at the unbroken ledge of ice. He had not thestrength or the wit to crawl upon it and make his way to land. Thebitter chill of the water was already paralyzing him. The strongcurrent was tugging at his hindquarters. Anger gave way to panic. Thepuppy wasted much of his remaining strength by lifting up his voice inear-splitting howls.
The Mistress and the Master, motoring into the drive from the highwaynearly a quarter-mile distant, heard the racket. The lake was plainlyvisible to them through the bare trees, even at that distance, andthey took in the impending tragedy at a glance. They jumped out of thecar and set off at a run to the water-edge. The way was long and theground was heavy with mud. They could not hope to reach the lakebefore the puppy's strength should fail.
But Lad was already there. At Wolf's first cry, Lad sprang out on theice that heaved and chucked and cracked under his greater weight. Hisrush carried him to the very edge of the hole, and there, leaningforward and bracing all four of his absurdly tiny white paws, hesought to catch the puppy by the neck and lift him to safety. Butbefore his rescuing jaws could close on Wolf's fur, the decayed icegave way beneath his weight, and the ten-foot hole was widened byanother twenty feet of water.
Down went Lad with a crash, and up he came, in almost no time, a fewfeet away from where Wolf floundered helplessly among the chunks ofdrifting ice. The breaking off of the shoreward mass of ice, underLad's pressure, had left the puppy with no foothold at all. It hadducked him and had robbed him even of the chance to howl.
His mouth and throat full of water, Wolf strangled and splashed in adelirium of terror. Lad struck out for him, butting aside theimpending ice-chunks with his great shoulders, and swimming with arush that lifted a third of his tawny body out of water. His jawsgripped Wolf by the middle of the back, and he swam thus with himtoward s
hore. At the edge of the shoreward ice he gave a heave whichcalled on every numbing muscle of the huge frame, and which--in spiteof the burden he held--again lifted his head and shoulders high abovewater.
He thus flung Wolf's body halfway up on the ledge of ice. The puppy'sflying forepaws chanced to strike the ice-surface. His sharp claws bitinto its soft upper crust. With a frantic wriggle he was out of thewater and on top of this thicker stratum of shore-ice, and in a secondhe had regained shore and was careering wildly up the lawn toward thegreater safety of his kennel.
Yet, halfway in his flight, courage returned to the sopping-wetbaby. He halted, turned about and, with a volley of falsetto barks,challenged the offending water to come ashore and fight fair.
As Wolf's forepaws had gripped the ice, he had further aided his climbto safety by thrusting downward with his hind legs. Both his hind pawshad struck Lad's head, their thrust had driven Lad clean underwater. There the current caught him.
When Lad came up, it was not to the surface but under the ice, someyards below. The top of his head struck stunningly against theunderpart of the ice-sheet.
A lesser dog would then and there have given up the struggle, or elsewould have thrashed about futilely until he drowned. Lad, perhaps oninstinct, perhaps on reason, struck out toward the light--the spotwhere the great hole had let in sunshine through the gray ice-sheet.
The average dog is not trained to swim under water. To this day, it isa mystery how Lad had the sense to hold his breath. He fought his wayon, inch by inch, against the current, beneath the scratching roughunder-surface of the ice--always toward the light. And just as hislungs must have been ready to burst, he reached the open space.
Sputtering and panting, Lad made for shore. Presently he reached theice-ledge that lay between him and the bank. He reached it just as theMaster, squirming along, face downward and at full length, began towork his way out over the swaying shore-ice toward him.
Twice the big dog raised himself almost to the top of the ledge. Oncethe ice broke under his weight, dousing him. The second time he gothis fore-quarters well over the top of the ledge, and he wasstruggling upward with all his tired body when the Master's handgripped his soaked ruff.
With this new help, Lad made a final struggle--a struggle thatlaid him gasping but safe on the slushy surface of the thickerice. Backward over the few yards that still separated them from landhe and the Master crawled to the bank.
Lad was staggering as he started forward to greet the Mistress, andhis eyes were still dim and bloodshot from his fearful ordeal. Midwayin his progress toward the Mistress another dog barred his path--a dogthat fell upon him in an ecstasy of delighted welcome.
Lad cleared his water-logged nostrils for a growl of protest. He hadsurely done quite enough for Wolf this day, without the puppy's tryingto rob him now of the Mistress' caress. He was tired, and he wasdizzy; and he wanted such petting and comfort and praise as only theworshipped Mistress could give.
Impatience at the puppy's interference cleared the haze a little fromLad's brain and eyes. He halted in his shaky walk and stared,dumfounded. This dog which greeted him so rapturously was not Wolf. Itwas--why, it was--Lady! Oh, it was _Lady!_
"We've just brought her back to you, old friend," the Master wastelling him. "We went over for her in the car this morning. She's allwell again, and----"
But Lad did not hear. All he realized--all he wanted to realize--wasthat his mate was ecstatically nipping one of his ears to make himromp with her.
It was a sharp nip; and it hurt like the very mischief.
Lad loved to have it hurt.